‘Israel Is Elephant In The Room In Iran-US Relations’ – 22 April 2015

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City and the founder of StopImperialism.com.

Israel is a key obstacle to the US-Iran thaw since the growing regional economic influence of Tehran presents a number of geopolitical and strategic stumbling blocks for Israel and its hegemony in the Middle East, political analyst Eric Draitser told RT.

RT:Both the US and Iran were pretty up-beat after the framework nuclear deal but their relations seem to have chilled since then. Iran’s Supreme Leader has accused the US of demonizing Tehran, adding that the real threat to the world is America itself. Washington in turn is sending warships to the shores of Yemen allegedly to intercept Iranian arms shipments. What do you make of it?

Eric Draitser: I think there are a number of factors that go into that. On the one hand, there is a domestic political conflict in the US. Anybody who has been following the news can see quite clearly the split between the Obama administration and many elements in the US government, be they on Capitol Hill in terms of Republican and Democrat hard-liners vis-à-vis Israel and Iran. We also see a split between the White House and certain elements in the Pentagon. So there are a number of key domestic political issues that are driving this. But there is also the large strategic and geopolitical conflict that has been initiated by Saudi Arabia, a key US ally. So the US is really in a position where it has to posture quite aggressively, quite belligerently against Iran in order to justify what I think is quite clearly an illegal aggression that has been committed by Saudi Arabia. And I think it’s interesting that if you examine the story that came across from the Associated Press regarding the US sending naval vessels into the region. They are extensively doing so in order to prevent Iran from bringing in weapon shipments to the Houthi rebels in Yemen in violation of a UN Security Council resolution. Of course what is left out of that narrative is the fact that Saudi Arabia and its coalition also have no UN Security Council authorization to wage this war in the first place. It’s not only demonization of Iran but it’s the US attempting to justify and to legitimize what I think is quite clearly an unjustifiable aggression by it and its allies.